Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Barack Obama had not been very effectivePhoto: AP

Mr Cheney was asked in an interview with Fox News whether the Democrats would have been better off with Mrs Clinton than Mr Obama as their candidate in 2012.

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to discourage good primary contest on their side, but I don’t want to be the position of endorsing Hillary Clinton. That might be the kiss of death for her,” he said.

Mrs Clinton ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in the 2008 elections but lost to Mr Obama, who made her his secretary of state. She has shown no interest in challenging Mr Obama in 2012.

But Mr Cheney, who has made numerous television interviews in recent days promoting his memoir and defending his own controversial performance during the Bush administration, was happy to stir the Democratic pot.

While he wouldn’t say that Mrs Clinton would have made a better president than Mr Obama, he said: “Perhaps she might have been easier for some of us who are critics of the president to work with.”

“I have a sense that she’s one of the more competent members of the current administration and it would be interesting to speculate about how she might perform were she to be president,” he said.

He said Mr Obama “has been not very effective, frankly, especially in the economic arena.”